1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to a device to edit documents for printout, and more particularly, to a device to convert files created in diverse formats into files having a format for printout and to edit the converted files to generate new documents in the format for printout, and a method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image printout devices, such as photocopiers, printers, etc., print images on sheets of paper.
In particular, as the printers have multi-media functions, a variety of methods has been provided to conveniently use data created for printout. For example, there are known techniques for changing attributes of the data for printout corresponding to documents. That is, the techniques are accomplished with an additional function provided on a control panel of a printer in order for users to easily change attributes of the data for printout corresponding to documents (referred to as ‘documents’) even in the printer.
Hereinafter, a conventional method for changing attributes of documents will be described.
In general, a user creates the documents of various types, such as text documents, using an application program, and sends the documents to a printer for printing. The user assigns attributes to the documents. The documents can be secure documents (SD), general documents (GD), delay documents (DD), etc., depending on the attributes assigned to the documents, and the user assigns one of the attributes to the documents if required.
The secure documents (SD) refer to an attribute assigned to confidential documents requiring users to input a password before printing. When the user creates a secure document, assigns a password to the secure document, and stores the secure document, the password is generally processed into a printer job language (PJL), inserted in a header of the secure document, and codified. In a printer having a security authentication function, the password of the secure document is compared with a password input by a user, and the document is printed out by the printer if the user-input password and the secure document password are matched. Thus, to print the secure document, the printer has to have the security authentication function.
The general documents (GD) refer to an attribute of documents that can be printed without any password, unlike the secure documents. The delay documents (DD) refer to an attribute assigned to documents that are printed with a time delay set by the user.
The user-assigned attributes are added to a header portion of the documents and stored in an internal memory, and the stored attributes of the documents are referred to when the documents are printed.
FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating a conventional method for changing an attribute of documents stored in a printer.
In a step S10, if a document attribute change command is received from a user, document attributes, user names, and document titles are read from header portions of the documents stored in a memory of the printer, and displayed on a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) unit of a control panel (not shown) of the printer.
In a step S20, the user selects a document from listed documents to change the document attributes. In detail, if the user wishes to change the document attributes, the user clicks on the selected document, and presses an attribute change button (not shown). If the user presses the attribute change button, the control panel displays a window prompting the user to select one of the secure documents, general documents, and delay documents.
In a step S30, if the user wishes to change the document attribute to convert a secure document into a general document, the step 30 requests the user to input a password in order to decide whether the user-input password matches a password added to the header portion of the secure document.
If the user-input password matches the password included in the header portion of the secure document, the user can change the document attribute of the secure document.
In a step S40, the user can change the document attributes of the selected documents. If the user wishes to delete some documents, the user can press a delete button (not shown) to delete the corresponding documents. Further, if the user wishes to change the attributes to convert the general document into the secure document, the user selects the general document to be converted into the secure document, and types the password in a ‘password input’ window. If the user presses an OK button, the general document is changed into the secure document. Further, if the user wishes to change the attributes to convert the general document into the delay document and the user selects the general document to be changed into the delay document, a ‘delay time input’ window appears. If the user types a time delay and presses the OK button, the general document is changed into the delay document.
As stated above, the techniques for changing the attributes of the documents that are stored in the memory of the printer are used as methods to conveniently change the created data for printout. However, changing the document attributes does not mean editing or changing data which is content of the documents. That is, the techniques change only attributes deciding when and how to process the documents, but do not change the content of the documents, nor edit and change the documents created in different formats (applications).